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Not So Funny When I Read It:
... still, I did finish it, which is saying something. I found the first few stories unimpressive, but they seemed to get better as the book progressed. I thought that "The King of the Ferret-Leggers" by Donald Katz was utterly hilarious and quite worth reading the whole book for.
Yes, it's funny and has a good selection of authors, but...:
How much travel humor have you read? How many works have you read by the authors included in this book? If you answered "a lot" to either of these questions, chances are that more than a couple of these stories will look familiar to you, as they are exerpts from previous publications rather than essays written specifically for this book. For example, the bit by David Sedaris is taken from "Me Talk Pretty One Day," and the Bill Bryson selection is taken from one of his books on America (either "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" or "The Lost Continent," unfortunately my memory fails me.) This is a great place to start for people who haven't read much travel humor. Since it does contain some fresh material, I would also recommend it to well-read fans of travel humor, but would also suggest buying it used rather than paying full price. Now, on to the actual quality of the content- this book shows once again that good travel writing doesn't always have to come from some crazy adventure, and that simply having a good narrative style can make any situation interesting. Examples of standard situations turned into good stories include: a middle aged woman pondering the local young, pretty girls' reactions to her appearance in her bathing suit (a.k.a. "butthink"), overcoming cultural differences in Vietnam by claiming that a perfectly healthy ex-wife is dead. Of course, there are also stories of the bizarre- like taking a frog on a cross country train and ending up in the new-age alien spotting capital of the USA, where the frog is "saved by aliens" after jumping from a cliff...
Not So Great, But...:
The content was too fragmented and uneven; it should have "flowed" a bit better. I felt as a reader (and writer), I was being jerked from one story to another. Some did make me laugh, however.
Made me laugh...:
My husband and I have done some traveling and, with our upcoming move to Europe, plan on doing a lot more so this book caught my eye. I've never read any travel humor books but I really liked this one. Most of the stories were at least funny, if not hilarious, and a few of them I finished and never looked back. Several people have mentioned that some of these stories are found in other books so I'm sure I'll come across them again since this book has me hooked on travel humor.
Either travel fans or those who enjoy humor will love this 'best of' travel writing collection:
Many of the best travel stories have their origins in mishaps, and here to offer up a satisfying dish of events is Not So Funny When It Happened, a survey of the best tales from travelers around the world. These come from Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, Anne Lamott and others: familiar authors whose funny encounters are not to be missed. Either travel fans or those who enjoy humor will love this 'best of' travel writing collection which takes an unusual approach to the normally-serious topic of travel experiences. Highly recommended. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch
| Binding: | Paperback | | Dewey Decimal Number: | 910 | | EAN: | 9781885211552 | | ISBN: | 1885211554 | | Number Of Pages: | 224 | | Publication Date: | 2000-11-30 | | UPC: | 692077211559 |
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